Crid's 1999 Grand Tour of Canada

3 weeks travelling by train from Toronto to Vancouver

Day 18 (Tuesday) - Vancouver (Penny Farthing Inn B&B)

Crawled out of bed around 8.15.  Showered and headed for breakfast.

My fellow guests are an English man who works for the British Library (he is working at the Maritime Museum in Vancouver at the moment), and an American couple.  The owner of the B&B is originally from Essex in England, but has been living in Vancouver for 28 years.  She hasn't lost her English accent though.

Breakfast was largely an "eat what you want" affair, although our host did bring us an egg dish, something like an omelette.  Similar to a dish I had in the Toronto B&B one morning.

After breakfast the owner took some time to show me lots of places to visit on a map.  Far more than I'll have time to visit.  It's looking pretty much like I won't have time to visit Victoria, which was one of my original plans.

Today I did a bit of window shopping along Robson Street (although it's largely populated by womens' clothes shops and souvenir shops) before visiting the IMAX.  I timed my visit badly as they are showing Extreme at regular intervals, and I've seen that already.  I will have to return either at the start of the day or in the late afternoon if I want to see the two other films.

Next I bought a tour bus ticket (valid for 2 days) and rode back to the Pacific Space Centre & Vancouver Museum (which are both housed inside the same building).  I had previously passed these on my way downtown.  The Space Centre was excellent, but I decided not to go on the simulator ride (included in the ticket price) because it seemed to be more science fiction than science fact.  My time was limited (since I didn't get there until around 2pm), so I wanted to look at the factual exhibits instead.

The Planetarium at the Space Centre was also excellent, probably the best I've ever seen.  Not only was the screen used for showing stars, it was also used for showing panoramic pictures.  The join between pictures was pretty much invisible, which isn't an easy task.

The Vancouver Museum was interesting with some good reconstructions of the interior of an immigrant ship, a railway carriage and some Victorian and Edwardian rooms.  There was also an excellent temporary exhibit about neon signs, with lots of rescued signs for the viewer to see.  Since I am interested in lighting (mostly theatrical, admittedly), I found this fascinating.

Walked back to the B&B.  At one point I was rather amused to see a jogger stop for a cigarette break.

Caught the results of the Manitoba elections on TV.  The NDP beat the Conservatives, but it seemed to be pretty close.  The Liberals got one seat.

 

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